Mega discoveries and Megafauna

This furry lumbering giant is one of Australia’s extinct range of Megafauna. It is the largest known marsupial at up to 3.8 metres in length and 1.7m high. It used its large front teeth to brouse on shrubs and provide its name! (di= two, proto= first and odon = teeth). We think it disappeared from the Australian continent around 25,000 years ago (which is pretty recent in the grand scheme of things!).

Why did they disappear? check out the following websites to discover more about these and other extinct megafauna

Parramatta West Public School spent the last two days helping us solve a local mystery about some bones we came across in our travels. Thanks to their scientific skills and large brains we now have solid evidence that we are in possession of a Diprotodon foot bone and some teeth!

The large foot of a Diprotodon optatum

As well as discovering about our unique megafauna students experienced a taste of the tough schooling ways of the early 1900’s in our old classroom, used their literacy skills to decipher an old diary and found out all about the Darug toolkit (how does a boomerang actually come back? and how is a hunting boomerang different to a returning boomerang?)